- Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday proclaimed victory in the Iowa caucuses moments after Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez demanded a recanvass, or retabulation, of the results.
- The Iowa Democratic Party still has not declared an official winner, with 97% of precincts reporting, because of breakdowns in the reporting process and unexplained inconsistencies and errors in the results.
- In his press conference, Sanders argued that, even though results from 3% of precincts were still missing, he was the rightful winner of Iowa by virtue of leading Pete Buttigieg in the number of votes.
- The Iowa Democratic Party said it would not recanvass the results unless a candidate formally requested one through the proper channels.
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Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday proclaimed victory in the Iowa caucuses from his New Hampshire headquarters moments after Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez demanded a recanvass, or retabulation, of the results.
Almost four days after the caucuses, the Iowa Democratic Party still has not declared an official winner, with 97% of precincts reporting as of 2 p.m. CT, because of breakdowns in the reporting process and unexplained inconsistencies and errors in the results.
Because caucuses conduct two rounds of preference expression, or alignments, to determine which candidates can receive delegates, the Iowa Democratic Party reported three sets of results: the initial votes from the first alignment for all the precincts, the results from the second alignment, and the estimated state delegate equivalents, or SDEs, calculated from the results of the second alignment.
The results from 97% of precincts showed Sanders and former Mayor Pete Buttigieg neck and neck in the total vote count from the second alignment and statistically tied in SDEs.
Sanders led the statewide popular vote by 5,954 votes in the first alignment and 2,518 votes in the second alignment over Buttigieg, who held 550 SDEs compared with 547 for Sanders.
In his press conference, Sanders argued that, even though results from 3% of precincts were still missing, he was the rightful winner of Iowa by virtue of leading Buttigieg in total votes in the first and second alignments.
—Alex Seitz-Wald (@aseitzwald) February 6, 2020
Perez’s calls for a recanvass came hours after The New York Times published a detailed and troubling analysis finding that “more than 100 precincts reported results that were internally inconsistent, that were missing data or that were not possible under the complex rules of the Iowa caucuses.”
—Zach Montellaro (@ZachMontellaro) February 6, 2020
Because of several factors, including the catastrophic failure of a mobile app designed to submit precinct results, inconsistent calculations of results, and jammed phone lines causing hours-long holds, precinct captains were initially unable to properly send the final data to the Iowa Democratic Party headquarters, delaying the release of the results.
The party said it would hold off on releasing any results until officials were confident they had it right, a process taking place over several days of resolving numerous issues with results that could sway the final tally.
Even after the initial fiasco with the reporting, the Iowa Democratic Party has continued to release error-ridden data, casting doubt on the authenticity of the results in such a tight race. On Wednesday, the party had to correct a batch of data that showed some candidates winning votes and SDEs where they had not.
Shortly after Perez’s tweets, the Iowa Democratic Party said it had “taken unprecedented steps to gather redundant reports to ensure accuracy of all underlying data” and would not recanvass the results unless a candidate formally requests one through the proper channels.
